


red red wine

by emmerrr



Series: underneath it all [2]
Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alcohol, Dates, F/M, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerrr/pseuds/emmerrr
Summary: Declan and Jordan go to a wine-tasting
Relationships: Jordan/Declan Lynch
Series: underneath it all [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928041
Comments: 11
Kudos: 53





	red red wine

“A wine-tasting? Really?”

Declan looked up from his phone and allowed himself a smile as Jordan approached, shrugging off her fabulous coat and revealing a neon-green crop top and high-waisted black jeans. She was by far the brightest light in the room, but then again, Declan was yet to be in a room with her in which she didn’t outshine literally everybody else.

Least of all him in his white button-down and grey slacks.

“What’s wrong with a wine-tasting?” he said when she hoisted herself into the stool opposite his.

“Nothing at all,” Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know, I just figured you as more of a whiskey person.”

Declan could see why someone might make that assumption. Whiskey seemed like it was for boring old men, and Declan was very deliberately boring, and definitely old before his time. In practice, however, he wasn’t much of a drinker at all. Drinking too much was a slippery slope.

A wine-tasting seemed safe enough, though. Small quantities.

“I’m…trying new things,” he settled on at last.

Jordan nodded sagely. “As you should. Good for the soul and all that.”

“So I’ve heard.”

They grinned at each other, but then were interrupted by the event starting.

“Hi, everyone, I’m Mindy, thanks for coming,” said a smiling woman from the middle of the room, the tall tables where people were sitting spread around her. “I’ll pass out tasting notes for you in just a moment, and you’ll notice there’s a spittoon on each table. Please don’t be shy about using them! You can, of course, drink some of the wines, but we recommend you wait until nearer the end of the tasting before you start to do that, otherwise your tasting abilities will be hindered.”

Declan looked at the spittoon, horrified. “I have to _spit_ in that?”he whispered, and Jordan burst out laughing, before swiftly managing to turn it into a throat-clearing when Mindy shot a look their way.

Mindy clapped her hands together. “Okay, first up we have a Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia!”

As soon as she finished saying it, a server with a tray full of glasses containing a small amount of red wine appeared and handed them all out. Mindy was quick to follow, dropping off tasting notes on each table.

Jordan looked at the wine, then at the notes, then at Declan. “What now?”

“I don’t know. They always smell it on the TV.”

Jordan picked up her glass and took a big whiff. “Hmm. Excellent. What a wonderful…uh, fruity…bouquet?”

Declan snorted and picked up his own glass. He gave the wine a swirl and then lifted it to his nose. “Aromas of campfire and manure. Just exquisite.”

“Yes. Exquisite. Quite,” Jordan agreed.

“Okay, I think we taste it now,” Declan said, looking around the room and making sure that’s what everyone else was doing. “I think you’re supposed to hold it on your tongue for a moment.”

Jordan held her glass up. “Cheers.”

Declan smiled and clinked his glass against hers. “Cheers.”

They knocked the wine back as one. Declan immediately, on instinct, swallowed it.

“Oh _fuck,”_ he said when he realised, Jordan valiantly trying not to laugh as she still had a mouthful of wine. He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You getting…” he checked the tasting notes, “hints of black cherry? Full-bodied texture?” Jordan’s cheeks puffed out and Declan grinned. “Pairs excellently with red meats, this one.”

Jordan grabbed the spittoon and not-so elegantly spat the wine into it. She smiled sweetly at him, and his traitorous heart skipped a beat. “You don’t want to play this game with me, Declan Lynch.”

He shouldn’t really. It was childish, he knew. But there was a new lightness in his chest that he was starting to associate with being around Jordan, and it felt _so_ good to laugh for real, without it costing him anything.

“Oh, Jordan,” he said. “I think I do.”

The evening devolved from there.

It was harder than Declan had anticipated not to drink the wine; it went against all his instincts to actually spit it out. And Jordan was very good at making him laugh, which meant that often he’d end up almost choking on the wine and being forced to swallow it anyway, as he was otherwise at risk of spitting red wine not into the spittoon, but all over the table.

He gradually felt his cheeks get rosier, his thoughts get hazier. He felt like he was talking and laughing too loud; words got harder to say, certain letters just out of his reach. He was distantly aware that they were drawing attention to themselves, but he couldn’t quite find it in him to care.

Jordan, although not quite at his level, had still drank far more of the wine than she was technically supposed to. They’d both slowly gravitated towards each other, arms leaning on the table, heads close together. Jordan had doodled a little Declan on the tasting notes. It was sketchy and rough, but still unimaginably good. In it, he was smiling, just like he was smiling now.

When Mindy came around with their last glass of wine, she asked them with forced politeness if they’d mind keeping it down.

Declan apologised profusely while Jordan pulled faces behind Mindy’s back. When Mindy walked off to the next table, he looked at Jordan sheepishly. “Think we’re making a scene.”

Jordan shrugged, unconcerned. “Well, they should be grateful we’re giving them something to look at. They’d all be having dull evenings without us. We’re basically providing a public service.” She cocked her head to the side and offered him a lazy half-smile that he found almost unbearably attractive. “I suppose you don’t make too many scenes, then?”

“No,” he said mournfully, but then brightened. “Oh! I did once.”

Jordan leaned imperceptibly closer. “Do tell.”

“I had a fight with my brother in the parking lot of a pizza place.” It wasn’t a good memory really, but the years had softened it somewhat.

“Did you win?”

“‘Uhhh…it was more of a mutual surrender.”

Jordan laughed, immediately bringing out a laugh of Declan’s own, and she patted his arm. “Finish your wine, mate, we’re leaving.”

He took a last swig and swiped the tasting notes with Jordan’s drawing off the table and into his pocket. Jordan threw her coat over one arm and tucked the other through Declan’s as they headed towards the door.

“Mindy, darling, it’s been wonderful,” Jordan called out, blowing a glaring Mindy air-kisses as Declan doubled over laughing and had to be half-dragged outside onto the street.

“We are absolutely gonna be banned from going back in there,” Declan said when he’d regained some of his composure. The night air felt nice and cool, and would probably do wonders for sobering him up.

“Ah well, it’s nice to be banned from doing something myself for a change.”

Declan paused, trying to assess her tone. She didn’t look particularly upset, but her words betrayed just a hint of bitterness. Everyone had stuff that they had to just carry around.

He stood before her, and cupped her face in his hands as gently as he knew how to. “You,” he said, “are one of a kind.”

She rolled her eyes, but she smiled too, and brought a hand of her own up to rest on Declan’s wrist. “That’s me," she said.

They stayed that way for a mere moment more, but then Jordan nodded, and together they set off down the street. She pulled Declan’s arm around her shoulders and kept hold of his hand, wrapping her free arm around his waist.

They swayed together, both helping each other keep upright whilst somehow simultaneously hindering each other’s movements.

It was okay. It was nice just to be touching, even if it took them longer to get anywhere.

“Where to now?” Jordan asked.

“Food. I’m _starving.”_

“What do you fancy?”

“You,” Declan said, then laughed. “I dunno. Something greasy that I’ll regret in the morning.”

“Best stock up on antacids,” Jordan quipped.

 _“Hey,”_ Declan complained, but grinned, because he felt _known._

She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. “So. The wine-tasting. Did you have a favourite?”

“Honestly?” He leaned close to her ear like he was telling her a secret, and whispered with drunken exaggeration, “They all kinda tasted the same to me.”

“Oh thank _fuck_ for that, I thought it was just me. They all just tasted like…wine.”

Declan nodded. “The winiest.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Is too, I _just_ said it. Anyway, I swiped the tasting notes so we can still sound like connoisseurs if anyone asks.”

“You kept the notes?”

“Of course I did, you drew an original on this. It’ll be worth a _fortune.”_

Jordan laughed lightly. “Well,” she said, and rested her head against his shoulder. “One day, maybe.”

They walked further along in companionable silence for a while. Declan tried to parse out how he was feeling, and realised that he was just content to be in the company of someone who didn’t expect anything from him.

“Declan?”

“Jordan.”

“Next time, I get to choose the date.”

Declan smiled. “Deal.”


End file.
